Business Promotion Managers
Plan, organise, direct, control and coordinate the advertising, business development, and sales and marketing activities within organisations.
Launch week at Ironbark Home
You are the sales and marketing manager of a furniture retailer, a few days before the biggest campaign of your year. The new range launches on Saturday. The advertising is booked, the stores are briefed, and with four days to go, three things land on your desk at once.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
I have tested two versions of the campaign headline with a small group. One is the safe one we planned. The other is bolder and people really reacted, but it makes a big claim about our delivery times. Which should we go with?
Use the bold one, because it got the stronger reaction and it is the one people remembered
The headline brings people in, but the delivery claim is not something the stores can always meet. Complaints follow, and the promise has to be pulled. A claim you cannot back is a cost, not an asset.
Stick with the safe one, since it is the headline we planned and nothing is wrong with it
The campaign runs without trouble and attracts a modest crowd. It is solid, but you gave up the energy that made people react, and you did not ask whether the bold idea could be made true.
Ask logistics what delivery promise is achievable, then reshape the bold headline
Hugo keeps the energy, and logistics keeps its word. The final headline gets the strongest reaction and holds up in the stores. Good marketing starts with what the business can actually deliver.
Our store is in a quiet town and the head office targets are the same as the big city stores. My team is already worried, and now two have said they might leave. Can you lower our target, or at least explain it?
Agree to lower her target quietly for this year, so she feels supported and the team stops worrying
Ayesha is relieved, but other store managers hear about it and ask for the same. The target needed a clear reason, not a private favour.
Explain that targets are set centrally and everyone has to meet them, however quiet the town
Ayesha feels unheard. Her best salesperson resigns the following month. Following the process matters, but so does understanding what the process misses.
Look at her store's real numbers, hear her case, and take a fair adjustment to leadership
Ayesha gets a hearing and a proper answer, and the leadership team sees a pattern across smaller towns. Setting targets that fit the market is part of leading a sales team.
I am furnishing a whole apartment block. I want a very deep discount, and I want it in writing today. If you cannot, I will go to your competitor down the road. What do you say?
Offer a fair discount tied to volume and delivery terms, and ask for a day to confirm the details
Kwame respects someone who negotiates rather than caves. You get time to check the margins, and a deal that works for both sides. Walking away from a bad price is a skill.
Give him what he asks, because the order is too big to lose
You win the order, but the margin is so thin that the store loses money on every sale. Volume does not help if the deal costs more than it earns.
Refuse any discount and let him go to the competitor
You protect the margins but lose a major customer, with no conversation about what would make a deal work. Negotiating usually has more room than a flat no.
How it went
By Friday night the campaign is set, the stores are briefed and the builder is thinking it over. Sales and marketing managers balance imagination with what the business can really deliver. Do you like the idea of a job that mixes creativity, numbers and people?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The sale that sold too well
A fictional case set in the marketing and sales team of a fictional regional furniture retailer with six stores.
The situation
Ironbark Home was a furniture retailer, and sales and marketing manager Leilani Parata decided to run a big weekend sale on outdoor dining sets. The advertising worked better than anyone expected. By Saturday lunchtime, the stores had run out of the most popular set. Online orders kept arriving for stock that did not exist, and the next shipment was three weeks away. Customers were already posting that they had paid for something they could not have. The campaign was still running.
What they did
Leilani paused the advertising immediately, even though it meant pulling a campaign that was working. She asked the website team to mark the item as sold out, and had the store managers phone every affected customer that day with a clear choice: wait with a small thank-you, swap for another set, or have a full refund. She also asked the buyer to find out whether a second supplier could shorten the wait.
How it turned out
Many customers waited, some swapped and a few cancelled. Reviews were mixed, but several people wrote that they appreciated the honesty. Leilani's team started checking stock levels with the buyer before each campaign launched, which was a simple step nobody had thought to take.
What would you do?
- Would you have been willing to stop a campaign that was working?
- How do you think a customer feels when they hear the truth early, compared with late?
- What does a marketing manager need to understand about parts of the business outside marketing?